Author. 




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I3.0i- 

.R& 



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Letters and 
Addresses on 
Woman Suffrage 

By Catholic Ecclesiastics 



COMPILED BY 

Margaret Hayden Rorke 




Price Ten Cents 



NEW YORK 
THE DEVIN-ADAIR CO. 

437 Fifth Avenue 



Additional copies of this booklet may be obtained from 

NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE PUB. CO., Inc. 

505 Fifth Avenue, New York City 

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Copyright, 1914, by 
Margaret Hayden Rorke 



c^ 






FOREWORD 

Prompted by the desire to correct the prevalent im- 
pression that the Catholic Church is officially opposed 
to Woman Suffrage, the compiler offers the following 
letters and addresses. As a Catholic mother, she sub- 
mits these expressions of Catholic Ecclesiastics (with 
their permission) in the hope that they may serve, not 
only to remove misapprehension and prejudice, but 
to inspire every woman with the desire to claim a 
share in the direction of legislation which affects her 
own status and the welfare of her children. 

M. H. R. 



v 



# 



Cardinal's Residence 
408 N. Charles Street 

Baltimore, March 2"j y 1914. 

My dear Mrs. Rorke : 

His Eminence, the Cardinal,* directs me to write 
and state that in answer to your letter regarding the 
Church's attitude concerning Woman Suffrage, the 
Church has taken no official attitude on the subject, 
but leaves the matter to the good judgment of her 
children, as to what they think best. 

The statement that our Church is opposed to the 
enfranchisement of women is incorrect. 
Faithfully yours, 

Eugene J. Connelly, 

Assistant Secretary. 
Mrs. William H. Rorke, 
57 Strong Place, 

Brooklyn, New York. 



♦His Eminence James Cardinal Gibbons. 
2 



©CI.A376831 

JUL 30 1914 



The following letter from the Most Rev. Patrick W. 
Riordan, Archbishop of San Francisco, was read in all 
the churches of the Archdiocese, Sunday, August 
ii, 1912: 

Rev. and Dear Father: 

While our Catholic people, with the high ideals 
which the Church hold's before them, ought to be 
models of right living and exemplars of the highest 
Christian virtue, they should also possess a high de- 
gree of civic virtue. 

The enjoyment of the privileges and blessings of 
citizenship impose correlative duties and obligations 
which no citizen should ignore. Among these duties 
the chief est is voting. Especially is this true in a coun- 
try with our form of government, in which a vote has 
but an arithmetical value. Majorities rule, both in 
making the laws and in choosing our officials ; hence, 
it is clear that the stability of our government depends 
ultimately upon the civic and moral virtues of its in- 
dividual citizens. 

Our Catholic people, therefore, should be not only 
law-abiding citizens, but should take part in the mak- 
ing of the laws under which they live, and in the 
election of officers worthy to administer the laws when 
made. This is true for women as well as for men. 

In California, woman suffrage is now an accom- 
plished fact. Women ought not, therefore, to permit 
their traditional love for the virtues of the home, their 
innate dignity and becoming reserve, to prevent them 
from discharging the chief est of civic obligations. I 
wish, therefore, you would take a seasonable oppor- 
tunity of advising our new electors to register, that 
they may be at all times prepared to give their services 
in making California a model State, and of handing 
down to the children that come after them, a tradition 
of righteousness and of unselfish patriotism. 
Yours sincerely in Christ, 
Patrick W. Riordan, 

Archbishop of San Francisco. 



The following letter was issued by Rt. Rev. Paul 
P. Rhode, Auxiliary Bishop of Chicago, 111., on hear- 
ing that many foreign women of the Archdiocese hesi- 
tated to register without the sanction of the Church. 
This letter was read in all the churches under his juris- 
diction on Sunday, March 15, 1914. 

"Catholic women of Illinois, in complete harmony 
with the teaching of the Church, should all accept the 
new prerogative of their citizenship with which they 
have been invested by the extension of suffrage to 
them by law. 

"Conditions demand that they be not reluctant to 
exercise their right of voting, but on the contrary, that 
they take a lively interest in the political life of the 
country. Let them do this provided they do not for- 
get their home, their duties toward their families, and 
provided that their interest in politics be at all times 
dignified, modest, and in agreement with the dictates 
of their conscience. 

"Let them shun blind partisanship, beware of dema- 
gogues, and hold fast to the ideals of Christian mother- 
hood, Christian maidenhood, and earnest citizenship. 

"Let the Catholic women remember the debt of 
gratitude to society and to the State for the benefits 
which they and all enjoy under its protection. When 
entering the polling place or voting booth no other mo- 
tives should actuate them than the welfare of the State, 
the good of society, and above all the protection of the 
family life of the nation and of sound principles." 



Church of the Sacred Heart, 
457 West 51st Street 

New York, May 26, 1914. 
Dear Mrs. Rorke: 

I hope you will pardon my delay in answering your 
courteous note of the 26th ult. 

You asked me if the copy of a clipping you enclosed 
was authentic. I answer, yes, substantially. There is, 
however, one correction to be made. 

It was not the other day but about two years ago 
that I expressed myself, as quoted in the clipping, to 
a representative of the Globe of this city. 
Yours sincerely, 

Joseph F. Mooney. 

"The Church has never taken any stand on this 
matter of extending the franchise to women," said 
Msgr. Mooney, Vicar-General of New York, the other 
day. "There is no reason whatever why any woman 
in the Church should not advocate votes for women, so 
long as she does it in an orderly lawful way. It does 
the Church a grave injustice to circulate the report 
that Catholic members in the different State legisla- 
tures are being influenced to vote against Suffrage 
because the Church is opposed to it." 

"Whatever has been said on this subject by priests 
and members of the hierarchy has been said by them 
as individuals." 



Paulist Fathers 
660 California Street 

San Francisco, Cal., 
April 16, 1914. 

My dear Mrs. Rorke: Yours of the 10th arrived 
yesterday, and you see I am answering it without need- 
less delay. 

It is quite true that I am, and have been all along, 
in favor of woman suffrage ; that is to say, as far as 
the right to vote is concerned ; which is, of course, the 
strict and proper meaning of the word. As to being 
voted for, and holding public office, the principal ob- 
jection to that, with regard to married women, espe- 
cially with families, seems to be their necessary occupa- 
tion with other duties. The same objection, of course, 
also applies to the clergy, to priests especially, and in 
fact to doctors and business men generally. But the 
man's business can usually be given up or delegated to 
some one else, whereas that can hardly be said of 
mothers of families. 

When it comes, however, to voting for others for 
public office, or for measures submitted to popular vote, 
I regard the argument so commonly advanced about 
woman's "sphere" being the home as simply and ob- 
viously absurd. One might as well say that the doc- 
tor's sphere is his office or the hospital, or his patient's 
houses ; or the priest's sphere the pulpit, the altar, or 
the confessional. The point is that no time need to be 
taken from one's regular duties in order to vote. I 
have never found that more than an hour, at the very 
outside, needed to be taken from my usual employ- 
ments, in the whole course of the year, in order to 
register and vote. It seems to be absurdly assumed 
that women, if they vote, must plunge into a whirl- 
wind of political meetings, parades, and the like. There 
is no reason why they should, any more than there is 



why quiet and business-like men should do so. Men 
just inform themselves sufficiently to vote intelligently, 
and vote ; that is all that most sensible men do. Women 
may have to make some fuss in order to get the right 
to vote ; but when they have got it, as they have in this 
State, they make less fuss than men do. That is our 
experience here. They learn what is needed in order 
to vote correctly and avoid mistakes in marking their 
ballots better than men do. 

As to what is really your main question, whether the 
Church is opposed to woman suffrage, the answer is 
simply that it is not. Probably the majority of our 
prelates and priests have been so ; but just as a matter 
of private opinion, due mainly to a conservative habit 
of mind, which Catholics, especially ecclesiastics, 
naturally get into. But no official action has been 
taken, and there is no probability whatever that any 
ever will be. 

Of course, by her Divine constitution, the Church 
excludes women from any share in her government. 
But she excludes the male laity just as entirely. But 
with regard to the government of the State, she has 
nothing to say. During the greater part of her his- 
tory, the government of the State has been monarchical ; 
but she never made any objection to queens regnant, 
any more than to kings. She has never opposed de- 
mocracy as a form of government in the State. If, 
therefore, the people are to take the place of a monarch, 
why should she oppose the female people any more 
than the male? It would not appear that she would 
object, if the people chose, to restrict the suffrage in 
a democracy to women exclusively, and give the men 
no vote at all. It would, probably, be good for the 
interests of religion to have such an arrangement. This 
may seem to be merely a joke, but it is not meant that 
way. How good it would be for France and Catholic 
countries generally, just now ! 



And it is quite plain that with regard to moral ques- 
tions, the interests of morality would be advanced by- 
woman suffrage, in the sense in which I have used it ; 
that is of women voting, not of their being voted for, 
for public offices. They seem, in some cases, to have 
made a success at the latter; but, for married women, 
at any rate, common sense would probably, as a rule, 
deem it unadvisable, just as it would be to elect a priest 
as mayor of a city. He has his own business to attend 
to, and the two cannot be combined. The temporal 
power of the Pope has its special reasons, the main 
one being to secure his independence; but he never 
attended to the details of government. 
Yours very truly, 

Geo. M. Searle, C.S.P. 



WHY I BELIEVE IN WOMAN SUFFRAGE 

BY 

Rev. J. Elliot Ross, Ph.D., C.S.P. 

Chicago, 111. 

Author of "Consumers and Wage-Earners" 

When I was living in an Italian seminary in Rome, 
I once startled the priests at the table out of their 
masculine self-complacency when I told them I thought 
that women were higher and nobler than men as a 
general thing and would make better priests. "How 
about St. Paul's legislation?" asked one. "Didn't he 
say that women shouldn't be heard in church?" "Cer- 
tainly he did," I admitted, "but that was only local 
and temporary. It was probably dictated by the fact 
that St. Paul was such a confirmed bachelor." 

"Then Christ made a mistake," objected another, "in 
selecting men to be His ministers." "Not at all," I 
answered, "because He chose the weak things of this 
world to confound the strong." 

"But if women are stronger and nobler than men," 

8 



said a third, "Christ should have become a woman." 
"No more," I said, "than He should have become an 
angel, because angels are nobler than men. Christ 
wished to empty Himself entirely, to humble Himself 
as much as possible." 

With a shrug of the shoulders, they decided it was 
the American way of looking at the question and in- 
comprehensible to a Latin. 

I suppose the chivalrous devotion of American men 
to women is incomprehensible to a Latin, and I am 
afraid that you will never have the chance to show 
whether or not you would make better priests. You 
will never be able to actualize Gibson's picture called 
"In Days to Come Our Churches May Be Fuller," 
representing a crowded congregation of men listening 
to a beautiful woman discoursing from the pulpit. We 
Americans can't give our women the priesthood, but 
we can give and have given you the ballot. You have 
the chance to show there that you are better and nobler 
and more sweetly reasonable than men. You have the 
chance to show that you can vote honestly, fearlessly, 
intelligently. 

Perhaps I am expected to give you the Catholic view 
of woman suffrage. If that be all that you wish to 
know of, you may as well stop reading now. That can 
be stated in less than a dozen words. For the Catholic . 
view of this question, to put it in an Irish way, is that 
there is no Catholic view. You might just as well 
speak of the Catholic view of the tariff, or the weather, 
or the corn crop. There is no Catholic view of woman 
suffrage, because it is not a Catholic question. 

As was recently said editorially in the official organ 
of the Archdiocese of Chicago, the Church "has never 
taken any stand either for or against the proposal. 
True, individual members of the Church, and even 
members of the clergy and hierarchy, have expressed 
opinions pro and con in regard to it, but these are but 



individual opinions, and do not represent the attitude 
of the Church as a whole. There is no obligation 
placed upon Catholics by the Church binding them to 
oppose any more than to support the suffrage move- 
ment, simply because there is no intrinsic question of 
faith or morals involved in it." (The Nezv World, 
Chicago, 111., Oct. 18, 1913.) 

Therefore, when I speak to you on woman suffrage, 
I am not giving you the Catholic view. I am giving 
you my own view. I am speaking to you as a citizen, 
not as a priest. 

Personally, I am very much in favor of woman 
suffrage, and that for three reasons. 

The first is, that women need the suffrage as much 
for their own highest spiritual and intellectual develop- 
ment, as for a protection against man-made laws. 

The second reason is, that men need women as help- 
mates in political as well as in domestic life. 

And my third reason for suffrage is, that there is 
no reason against it. 

WOMEN NEED THE SUFFRAGE 

In the first place, women need the suffrage. They 
need it for their own spiritual and intellectual growth. 
You have heard it said, doubtless, that the suffrage is 
going to hurt women spiritually. These objectors take 
the lofty ground of looking out for woman's best in- 
terests and profess to believe that she will be degraded 
by the foulness men have created in political life. But 
such persons underrate woman's influence for good. 
If we could conceive the home without a mother, 
family life would be worse than political life. And to 
extend woman's influence from the hearth to the ma- 
chinery of government, is not going to injure her, but 
purify and ennoble our politics. 

I believe that women, in order to fulfill their home 
duties, need to get out of the home in the wider life 



of the nation. To center all our interests in one family- 
is selfishness, no matter how big the family, and all 
selfishness is narrowing. As has been said, the history 
of civilization is the history of the enlarging concept 
of neighbor. At first confined to immediate blood re- 
lations, then to a village or tribe, then a nation, we 
are gradually growing into a realization of that sub- 
lime intuition of St. Paul, when there will be neither 
Jew nor Greek, bond nor free, white nor black, but 
one brotherhood of man united through the fatherhood 
of God. 

Also, woman needs the vote to protect herself 
against man-made laws, whether or not she have prop- 
erty. 

It is a trite saying, but its triteness does not rob it 
of its truth, that the unmarried woman who is paying 
taxes is being taxed without representation. And the 
fact that this has been going on so long does not make 
it less tyranny than what our fathers fought against. 
Women who are going to pay the tax should have some 
voice in fixing the rate ; women who are going to pay 
the assessments should have some voice in deciding 
upon the improvements. 

And the married woman's rights in her own prop- 
erty and in that of her husband should be just the 
same as those of her husband in his own and in hers. 
There is absolutely no reason for any distinction favor- 
ing the man, except that men have made the laws. 
Yet in some States, the property relations between 
husband and wife are a virtual realization of the old 
joke: What's yours is mine, and what's mine is my 
own. The wife has no control over her husband's 
property, real or personal. He may dispose of it 
without her consent and in any way. Whereas, the 
management of her estate is entirely in his hands. 
Her personal property becomes his property; her real 
estate is managed by him. He can eject tenants (even 



his wife's own mother), collect rents and use the in- 
come in any way he pleases. He may give his wife 
a part but he is not bound to.* 

Formerly in Maryland,! the surviving husband of 
an intestate woman took life estate in all the wife's 
realty. This arrangement might sometimes work ex- 
treme hardship to the children. For instance, a 
wealthy widow with one child, a daughter, remarries 
and dies without a will. The child, if her mother had 
only real property, becomes dependent upon the gen- 
erosity of a step-father. She owns her mother's es- 
tate, but can get none of the income until her step- 
father's death. 

In many States a man has a legal right to his own 
wages and they cannot be seized for any debt con- 
tracted by his wife without his consent. Yet his wife's 
wages can be seized for his debts, though she may have 
had absolutely nothing to do with making them and 
may have been seriously injured by such expenditure. 
A mistress was once about to pay her cook when she 
was handed a perfectly legal document requiring her 
instead to pay the money to a certain saloonkeeper, 
because the cook's husband had run a bill there. So 
this woman, besides taking the abuse and beating from 
her husband in his cups, actually had to pay by her 
hard work for the liquor that made a beast out of him.$ 

*Sou. W. Rep., 63, p. 867, Rev. Stats. 1895, Art. 2967, 
Texas Sup. Ct., held during marriage husband has control 
of wife's separate estate. Tenn. Reps., 86-333 : Husband may 
eject tenant of lease made by wife without his consent. As 
head of family he controls wife's lands. Id. 101, 374: 
Husband entitled on marriage to wife's personalty in pos- 
session and at her death to choses in action. Husband re- 
covered land wife had willed to half brothers and sisters, 
she having no issue. 

fCf. Md. Code 1904, Art. 45, Sec. 7. 

^This happened in Illinois. Law has since been changed 
to protect their wages from creditors of husband. Cf. 111. 
Rev. Stats. 1912, p. 1284, Sec. 7. 



The property relations of man and wife should be 
recognized as an equal partnership, though even then, 
probably most women would not be getting what they 
really contribute. Anything made and saved after 
marriage should be shared half and half, and the wife 
should have the power of disposing of her portion by 
will. Comparatively few women are supported by their 
husbands. The economic contribution of the woman 
is usually fairly equal to that of the man, as is found 
out when the mother dies. His wages are seldom suffi- 
cient then to buy in the market the same services that 
his wife was giving gratis. Her contribution in cook- 
ing, sewing, washing, caring for the children, in forc- 
ing the income to go as far as possible, in making all 
that is meant by the word "home" is, in the vast ma- 
jority of cases, worth more than the man's contribution 
of daily wages. 

Again, in the question of rights over the children, 
there is a discrimination against the woman. In some 
States she may not recover damages for the death of 
a son, unless the child be actually with her at the time. 
This condition is not imposed upon the man. There- 
fore, a mother who had raised a boy deserted by his 
father and her husband, could not recover damages for 
his death ; or if she could they would go into a fund to 
be kept for her absconding husband. When he re- 
turned, he could take the money legally and again 
desert her. Of course, this is not the law in all States, 
but it should not be the law even in one.* 

MEN NEED WOMAN SUFFRAGE 

I want equal suffrage for what it will do for men. 
We have halved society, as has been said, and the 
surgical operation has left the worse and weaker half 
to deal with political problems. Men have not been 

*Cf. N. Y. Supplement, Vol. 27, p. 403; Bliss, N. Y. An. 
Code, Vol. 3, p. 3821, Sec. 7. 

13 



able to handle the increasing complexities of civiliza- 
tion. There may be no ultimate solution of these 
problems. I don't see any. But, then, I am a mere 
man. Perhaps when women get the political power 
that men have, they will be able to show us some 
remedy. 

But though there may be no ultimate and universal 
remedy, there are certain crudely evident things that 
ought to be done, and which will be done when women 
get a real chance. 

For instance, all monopoly of certain resources and 
products ought to cease. Ten per cent, of the people 
of the United States ought not to own 90 per cent, 
of the wealth. Half a million people, in a city like 
Chicago, ought not to be forced to live in unsanitary 
tenements because a few others have monopolized the 
land ; 30,000 men should not be killed and twenty times 
as many injured in mine and factory every year; our 
children should not be taken at four, six, eight years 
old to drudge unceasingly to make our finery; our 
meats should not be tainted, our bread mouldy, our 
fruits spoiled. All these things are unnecessary. 

Yet men have faced these conditions helplessly. 
They have made the laws under which such crimes 
have been perpetrated ; under which our railroads and 
our express companies, our gas and electric light com- 
panies, have consistently robbed us in order to pay 
dividends on watered stock ; under which a small ring 
of money kings have throttled the nation and dictated 
their own terms. 

What women have done without the suffrage and 
where they have had the suffrage is a presage of what 
they will do when they get it universally. Woman 
has not only put her own house in order, she has put 
her town in order. Women are the only people who 
know what cleanliness means. Go into the house of 
a religious order of men — there are cobwebs on the 

14 



ceiling and dust on the floor, and you could write your 
name on the tables, because there are no women there 
to keep it clean. But a religious community of women 
will keep their house spotless, because there are no 
men around to dirty it up. 

From coast to coast, women have put towns in 
order. They have gotten public parks and play- 
grounds, they have made war on billboards, ash heaps 
and garbage cans; they have gotten drinking foun- 
tains for man and beast; they have shortened hours 
for women and eliminated children from industry; 
they have put seats behind counters and started shop- 
early campaigns; the Red Cross Society and the war 
on tuberculosis are the result of women's efforts ; she 
has established day nurseries and public feeding sta- 
tions; she has obtained medical inspection in the 
schools. 

And where woman has the vote she is concentrating 
her attention upon such laws as those for a minimum 
wage, anti-child labor, mothers, pensions, equal co- 
guardianship of children, vocational training in public 
schools and other State institutions. 

Certainly man needs woman's help in governing this 
nation as in governing the home. As has been said, 
man has by long absorption in commerce been trained 
to think in terms of property; whereas woman by 
immemorial custom has been trained to think in terms 
of humanity — the home, husband, children. We can- 
not afford to have our laws made by any narrow, one- 
sided class as men have been and will continue to be. 
It is not only just and proper to give woman the vote — 
it is good policy. For we need the influx of their 
humanity in dealing with our problems. 

NO SOLID ARGUMENT AGAINST SUFFRAGE 

If you wish a third argument, it is that there is no 
argument against equal suffrage. When you carry the 

IS 



war into the enemy's country and demand an argument 
against votes for women that does not equally apply 
to votes for men, you get only inconclusive vaporings. 

It is sometimes said, for instance, that the exercise 
of the franchise will take a woman out of the home 
to the neglect of domestic duties. An advocate of 
votes for women was once addressing a Baltimore 
gathering and received this very objection when she 
offered to answer questions. Some mere man from the 
audience demanded with a delicious air of finality: 
"What's going to become of the babies when the 
women go out to vote?" "What becomes of them now 
when we go to market?" was the ready and sufficient 
reply. 

In fact, one might just as reasonably urge that 
women should have no religion, because church-going 
may interfere with their home obligations. Church- 
going does interfere with the domestic duties of some 
women. They spend entirely too much time in church 
and in learning the gossip of the parish. 

And why is it not a mother's place to prepare her 
boy for full-rounded citizenship? Why should a lad 
take his religion from his mother, but his politics from 
his father? Why should not her influence extend into 
the political sphere, too? Why should she not train 
him in political as in other righteousness? But she 
cannot do this effectively unless she have a personal 
interest through the suffrage. And so her domestic 
duties, instead of militating against the suffrage argue 
for it. For she cannot fulfill her duties toward her 
children in the largest, completest sense without taking 
some part in political affairs. 

It is said, too, that for a wife to be able to vote will 
mean a constant source of quarreling between her and 
her husband. You cannot expect them to agree in 
politics, and, therefore, they will soon be breaking up 
the furniture. But we assume that we have reached 
16 



that degree of civilization where two people, even two 
who love one another and are united by one of God's 
sacraments, can differ without fighting about it. It is 
possible peaceably to agree or disagree. And if people 
can't do that on the question of politics, it will do little 
good to eliminate that particular question. They will 
find plenty of other things to quarrel over. 

Others will tell you that women are governed too 
much by sentiment to use the suffrage intelligently. 
They are not so rational as men, they guess instead of 
reason, they jump at conclusions. But what's the 
harm of jumping at conclusions provided you arrive at 
the right one? Why go round Robin Hood's barn 
when you can go through ? And men guess themselves. 
The difference between men and women in the matter 
is the difference between the North and the South. 
Northerners guess and Southerners reckon — but 
Southerners reckon better than Northerners guess. 
Men don't reason things out ordinarily. And fortu- 
nately so. For if our government were in the hands 
of educated men who reason to their conclusions, it 
would be the most egregious failure in the world. We 
who believe in democracy know that its success is 
based upon that fact — that the people, the great un- 
washed, uneducated people are, after all, better judges 
than a set of pedagogues. 

What do the men who talk about sentiment and 
guess work know about the effects of a tariff? The 
great majority of them didn't have enough informa- 
tion on the subject to vote intelligently, according to 
their own standard. These self-constituted arbiters of 
what is practicable and impracticable, advisable and 
inadvisable, have always damned every progressive 
movement since the world began. They told us loco- 
motives were useless because a horse beat the first one ; 
they told us steam transatlantic navigation was impos- 
sible, because they had figured out, on rational 

17 



grounds, that a ship couldn't carry all the coal she 
would need; they told Columbus he was a fool to try 
for a new route — and so on indefinitely. 

"Be sure you're right, then go ahead," would be a 
good motto if you could ever be sure. But if you wait 
to be sure, you'll never get anywhere. You'll stay in 
the same place till doomsday. You will be like the 
scholastic donkey starving between two haystacks, be- 
cause the reasons were equally good for eating either. 
A little recklessness, a little guessing, a little faith in 
Providence is necessary for progress. And because 
women have more faith than men they can use the 
suffrage better. For in some ways political faith is 
akin to divine faith — it is the substance of things hoped 
for, it is the evidence of things that appear not. 
(Hebr. 6: 1.) 

Women have more hope, more optimism, more ideal- 
ism, and therefore, they have greater ability to realize 
the substance of the things they hope for, greater power 
of creating the evidence of those things that appear 
not as yet to the grosser, more material vision of men. 

And so, where women have not the suffrage, I would 
give it to them for these three reasons : ( I ) That they 
need it for their own spiritual and intellectual develop- 
ment as well as for a protection against man-made 
laws ; (2) that men need that women should vote ; 
(3) and the third reason is, that there is no reason 
against giving them the suffrage. 



THE CHURCH AND THE POSITION OF 
WOMAN TO-DAY 

BY 

Rev. Joseph H. McMahon, Ph.D. 
Rector of the Church of "Our Lady of Lourdes," 
New York City 
I pointed out in a previous lecture that the funda- 
mental philosophical reason of the woman movement 
18 



was briefly this : the social revolution, that has so 
completely changed her condition, has not been so swift 
in changing the framework of law that holds society 
together to-day. As a consequence, woman is in a 
false social position because that position is not recog- 
nized by the spirit of laws and constitutions enacted 
for other times, other conditions. Hence the need of 
legal changes, and enactments that shall be more in 
harmony with the de facto position of woman. I 
believe the need of some such proceeding is vaguely 
admitted by all. When it comes to the practical means 
of effecting these changes then there is evidently the 
widest divergence of opinion. 

Let me make it clear, first of all, that the Catholic 
Church does not and cannot approve of any methods to 
better woman's position that are criminal or immoral. 
Time brings sweet revenges ; and one of the sweetest is 
to have the representative of that Church that has for 
so long been vilified, calumniated and abused as up- 
holding and practising the utterly immoral doctrine 
that "the end justifies the means" being now compelled 
to protest most energetically against those who for- 
merly her most eager or convinced accusers, are now 
actually condoning or proclaiming this infamous teach- 
ing. 

It is amazing to find women of culture, high social 
standing, unblemished personal morality, irreproachable 
private lives, unblushingly sympathizing with the cruel, 
criminal, barbaric demonstrations of militant suffra- 
gettes in England. Even members of the Catholic 
Woman's Suffrage League in that country have for- 
gotten the teachings of their Church and the warnings 
of their ecclesiastical superiors in their blind but mis- 
guided zeal to secure the success of a means of better- 
ment with which as such the Catholic Church has not 
and can have no quarrel. 

Such indefensible methods gravely prejudice the 

19 



question at issue ; and as in all such matters, the result- 
ant confusion creates in the mind of the thoughtless 
people who are unable, or do not take the trouble, to 
distinguish the issues, the idea that the Church and 
Catholics as such are opposed to woman suffrage. 
Nothing could be further from the real truth. 

Individual Catholics indeed, in large numbers, and 
individual ecclesiastics, some of high standing, and of 
great authority, are opposed to granting the suffrage 
to women. But no authoritative or official pronounce- 
ment has been made against it nor is it easy to see how 
any such could legitimately or reasonably be made. 
And for every Oliver denouncing woman's suffrage, 
an ecclesiastical Roland can be cited. 

Perhaps the strongest utterance as yet made in this 
country was that made last autumn by the Archbishop 
of San Francisco, when in a pastoral letter, fulfilling 
his episcopal office of teaching the faithful, he strongly 
urged the women of his flock to exercise their preroga- 
tive of voting. The testimony of Archbishop Red- 
wood, of Wellington, New Zealand, given in a news- 
paper interview in this country, while it has not the 
same sacrosanct character, is, however, important and 
valuable to set against the harsher jeremiads of other 
ecclesiastics who apparently have not taken the trouble 
to study the question very profoundly, and are swayed 
more by their prophetic apprehensions of evil than by 
the calm logic of analogy, history and facts. 

I take pleasure in quoting the interview in full: 
"Women," said the Archbishop to a reporter of the 
St. Louis Times, "have had the vote in New Zealand 
for many years, and it has been proven that they use 
it wisely and judiciously, and for the greatest common 
good. I am heartily in sympathy with the movement 
in this country, and believe that the tide of equal 
suffrage cannot be stemmed. Not very long ago we 
had a woman as mayor of Wellington, the capital of 



New Zealand, and her administration, while not a 
phenomenal success, was a meritorious one in many- 
respects. The greatest service of the women voters 
to New Zealand lies in the school, hospital and chari- 
table departments, and in bringing about municipal 
beautification and improvement. The women of New 
Zealand have maintained the high standard of purity 
and womanhood, and, if anything, they are better wives 
and home-conservers." 

Indeed, I am informed that in that wonderful anti- 
podean land even the Catholic nuns vote, a fact, if it 
be a fact, that should rightfully give many of us an 
apoplectic seizure. 

But seriously, why should women not have the right 
to vote? Let us examine that question apart from all 
personal prejudice, predilection, apprehension, aside 
even from the consideration that, in the opinion of 
many if not all those engaged in the feminist move- 
ment, it is the sole effective means of securing that 
betterment for which they are struggling. 

The right to vote can be denied to women either on 
the ground that suffrage is an inherent right of the 
men of any commonwealth, or that women are essen- 
tially unfitted for its exercise, or, from the Catholic 
point of view, that to grant it would be to break with a 
sacred tradition, or that its exercise would tend to de- 
grade them. 

It is, of course, an absurdity to think that men have 
any inherent or essential right to the suffrage. That 
right is determined by the body politic, and is ulti- 
mately a matter of positive and mutable law. As far 
as it may be connected with the fundamental law of 
any society the suffrage should belong to the directing 
elements of such society. Under present conditions 
women must surely be counted among these elements. 
Once you proclaim the principle of universal suffrage 
and be it understood such principle is proclaimed in 



the idea of manhood suffrage, you really ignore the 
right of all the directing elements and substitute the 
senseless tyranny of a majority unless you provide for 
some sort of proportional representation. 

The Supreme Court of New Jersey quite recently 
denied that there was any such thing as an inherent 
right to the suffrage, or any intrinsic necessity that it 
belonged to one class of citizens rather than to an- 
other. 

Restrict the suffrage if you will ; enact any qualifica- 
tion you may desire, but do not be guilty of the ab- 
surdity and injustice of establishing sex as a barrier, 
when under actual conditions woman is so important 
a factor in every relation of modern life. Woman with- 
out the suffrage, and therefore without responsibility, 
has always exerted political influence. Her ignorance 
in affairs of State was so much the more dangerous 
since, incurring no responsibility, running no risk, she 
could allow herself to be guided by whim or passion. 
Place responsibility on her by giving the right to vote, 
and at least you are in no worse position, but in all 
probability in a better one. 

Nor can it be truthfully said that woman is un- 
fitted for the exercise of the suffrage. Who will 
claim, for instance, that a woman of education and 
affairs cannot better discharge that function than her 
ignorant furnace man, or the drunken corner loafer, or 
the low-browed gunman, or the political heeler. 

What sound argument can be advanced against the 
proposal to give woman the right of suffrage? Surely 
the appeal to tradition, especially on the part of Cath- 
olics, is pointless and contradictory. For, first of all, 
we must remember that the political system of suf- 
rage is altogether of recent date, commencing practi- 
cally with the establishment of these United States. 

The protest in the name of traditional custom is 
about as sensible as a protest against automobiles or 



electricity. As a witty French woman put it: "You 
might as well say that since the Romans did not make 
use of dynamos we have no right to use incandescent 
lamps. Parliamentary rule and universal suffrage are 
also novelties of the century, and it would be difficult 
to prove by legal tests or historic documents that the 
exercise of our right to vote was long ago an exclu- 
sively masculine appanage." 

On the contrary, and it is well for Catholics, par- 
ticularly, to take note of this, as far as there is a tra- 
dition, it is in favor of woman suffrage. 

In former times all governmental offices were filled 
by the sovereign or by right of inheritance or rank, and 
voting was a rarity. But wherever the right to vote 
did exist, in the great mediaeval corporations, for ex- 
ample, in cantonal, communal or municipal affairs, and 
especially in female as well as male religious communi- 
ties, women as such were not excluded from voting. 

There is on record, for instance, the details of an 
election in Montpellier in 1334 and 20 per cent, of the 
voters were women. In almost every country women 
had the right to vote in communal affairs. In the 
republics of the Middle Ages the officials of the Com- 
munes were designated by lot irrespective of sex, a 
usage that obtained in Tuscany until 1849 an d in Lom- 
bardy until 1816. 

In the Franche-Comte women who were landed pro- 
prietors assisted in the legislative councils, and the 
convocation writ of the famous States-General of 1780 
is a proof of the right of women to vote. 

According to feudal law, a woman possessed of a 
fief acquired all seignorial rights. She could adminis- 
ter and receive oaths, nominate officials, assist at de- 
liberative and legislative assemblies. In many coun- 
tries a married woman could administer her own prop- 
erty independently of her husband. 

Laboulaye cites marriage contracts of that tenor 

23 



from the tenth and eleventh centuries that not only 
endow women with property and administrative rights, 
but also with proprietary rights. Such rights included 
that of voting. The early municipal customs of 
France, Spain and Flanders gave women an independ- 
ence greater than they have ever possessed until now. 
Laboulaye, who surely cannot be accused of partiality 
to woman suffrage, admits that "women during all 
the Middle Ages possessed entire civic capacity, and 
preserved it even when married, no matter what their 
rank. That doctrine confirmed by the Code of St. 
Louis is general. A woman possessed of a fief exer- 
cised the right to hold courts both of first instance and 
of appeal, to coin money, to levy troops, to serve in 
person her suzerain, if she so willed." 

Instances in proof will occur to the memory. The 
Countess of Flanders sat with her peers in the trial 
of the Count of Clermont by St. Louis, King of 
France. The Countess Matilda nobly served her 
suzerain, the great St. Gregory, patron of this associa- 
tion. The pages of mediaeval French and English his- 
tory are full of similar instances. King Louis le Jeune, 
in a letter to the Vicomtesse of Marbonne, recognized 
the right of women to administer justice. Out of 
forty-eight great fiefs of France only one excluded 
women from the Council of State ; that was the He de 
France, a dependence of the king and, consequently, 
under the Salic law. But be it remembered that France 
itself was alone in imposing the Salic law, and France, 
even while refusing to women succession to the throne, 
placed in their hands the regency with powers as great 
as royalty itself could possess. 

Those who appeal to tradition, then, to justify the 
refusal to women of the suffrage, are thereby con- 
victed of ignorance. For Catholics such an appeal is 
an indication of abyssmal ignorance. The times of 
which we have been speaking were Catholic. In Cath- 



olic countries, the Code of St. Louis, which sanctioned 
these rights to women, continued in force until it was 
ruthlessly superseded by the Code of the Revolution. 
Catholics, therefore, who invoke tradition as opposed 
to the principle of woman suffrage are embracing the 
unholy tradition of the French Revolution, and are 
innocently adopting the motto of Milton's Satan, 
"Evil be thou my Good." Moreover, Catholics, above 
all, should not forget that to-day, even as in the Middle 
Ages, in religious communities, women elect their su- 
periors. The history of abbesses in their Church 
should stop their protest against woman's right to vote. 
Furthermore, it may be a surprise, but it is, neverthe- 
less, a fact that even to-day in the great diocese of 
Turin, Italy, and in many of the Catholic cantons of 
Switzerland, Catholic women as well as their men 
folk vote for the parish priest, and the Bishop is 
obliged to confirm the candidate so elected by the votes 
of the women as well as those of men, unless he can 
find some canonical ground for his refusal, and then 
the election must be held again by identically the same 
electors. 

If the Catholic Church allows women to vote for an 
office of such tremendous responsibility as that involv- 
ing the care of souls, who will presume to say that she 
is of necessity opposed to women voting for merely 
political officials. 

But, it will be urged, woman suffrage will introduce 
another cause of discord in the home. Husband and 
wife may disagree in politics. The woman who mixes 
in political affairs will neglect her home duties. To 
which it may safely be said, first, that there are others 
to be considered than married women. Single women 
are a legion, and then there are widows to be taken 
into account. Surely their claims have as much right 
to be considered as married women. But leaving this 
3Ut of sight, suppose you do prevent a woman from 

25 



voting, you cannot prevent her from thinking. So, 
fundamentally, if disagreement may be cause of dis- 
cord, it is not removed by the denial of the vote. Hus- 
bands and wives are now divided on more important 
questions than political ones, but in the majority of 
cases they manage to get along. 

We all know of families divided by deeper and more 
fundamental differences in religious matters, yet they 
manage to live in harmony. Is it not absurd then to 
think that political divergence must inevitably produce 
shipwreck ? 

To say that the exercise of the right to vote will 
mean that a woman must neglect her home duties is to 
utter a smug commonplace that shows how little given 
to reflection we are. 

It is true, and observing foreigners have often told 
us so, that our American women do not seem to take 
any intelligent interest in political affairs. That is no 
longer true of a considerable body of our women. But 
it has not been noted that in European countries, where 
educated women have not only a keen interest in their 
husbands' business affairs, but also in the great politi- 
cal concerns of their country, their domestic duties 
suffer from their intellectual activity. 

It is a truism in those countries that where women 
are interested intelligently in the serious business of 
life, their own peculiar duties are better performed and 
managed. It is not the idle, flirting, pleasure-loving, 
brainless, seven-toilettes a day dolls of our ballrooms 
or card parties that make the best housekeepers, wives, 
or mothers. And, practically speaking, how much 
time does the average male voter bestow upon the dis- 
charge of his political duty in this country? 

Again, I say, restrict the suffrage by some intelligible 
standard of qualification, but as long as the enlight- 
ened farmers of Clinton County, New York, the float- 
ing voters of New York City, the Whited Sepulchers 
26 



of Adams County, Ohio, are so much in evidence, do not 
be guilty of the imbecility of denying the vote to women 
because it would interfere with their home duties. 

Do not seek refuge either in the hypocritical asser- 
tion that the casting of a ballot once a year in a ballot- 
box in a polling place, protected by every known de- 
vice, will degrade women or be an indecent act. Be- 
fore you descend to utter that, stop the crowding in 
our New York subway, elevated and surface cars, 
where every vestige of delicacy disappears in your 
treatment of women, where the standard of decency is 
daily degraded, where all the fine restraints Christian 
civilization has thrown around woman for the pro- 
tection of her modesty are disregarded and she conse- 
quently vulgarized. 

Stop your promiscuous pleasure gatherings. Men, 
stop taking your wives to the theatre where they be- 
hold representations that make them glad that no one 
but their husbands are with them; stop your young 
girls from going to performances and talking about 
them, even while admitting they could not endure the 
thought of witnessing them in the company of any of 
their men folks, relatives or friends. 

Purify your social life, but do not be guilty of the 
stupidity of saying that the exercise of the right to 
vote would degrade any virtuous woman in the world. 
As long as you send your daughters out into the busy 
market place with all its dangers, and expect them to 
avoid the pitfalls that are, alas, too common, please 
do not commit intellectual suicide by declaring that 
they cannot vote because their modesty or reserve 
might suffer. 

And to bring the matter a little closer, as long as at 
church bazaars, fairs, collections, card parties, recep- 
tions et hoc genus omne, you can engage the services 
of Catholic women, young and old, to meet friend and 
stranger alike, without any thought of danger, please 

27 



do not conjure up imaginary dangers as lurking in a 
polling booth, protected by the laws of the land and the 
intelligent manhood that is at last awakening to its 
duty in the politics of their country. 

Delivered before the Catholic Library Association at 
Delmonico's, January 15, 1913, and reported in the 
Catholic News, New York City, February 1, 191 3. 



WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH IT ? * 

BY 

Rev. J. Elliot Ross, Ph.D., C.S.P. 

Chicago, 111. 

Author of "Consumers and Wage-Earners" 

You women of Illinois have the vote — what are you 
going to do with it ? 

To the women who have not thought of voting, or 
who have halfway decided not to vote, I wish to say : 

Have you ever walked down State Street in the 
eight or nine hundred block? If you have, you must 
have observed the horrible looking specimens of hu- 
manity spilt along the street — men with viciousness 
and debauchery written all over their faces. 

Each one of those men has a vote and he is going 
to use it. He is not going to stay away from the polls 
through indifference or laziness or any sense of home 
duties. He and thousands of others of his kind will 
vote just as some dishonest, grafting politician dictates, 
to help on the vice and corruption here in Chicago. 

Now, you have the power to offset one such corrupt, 
dishonest, vicious vote. Aren't you going to use it? 
Aren't you, the Catholic women of Chicago, going to 

*An appeal made shortly before the Spring Election of 
1914, urging the Catholic women of Illinois to exercise their 
newly acquired civic rights. 

28 



break the forces of the power of evil? Forty-five per 
cent, of the people of Chicago are Catholics — one- 
fourth of the voters of Chicago are Catholic women. 
Have we not a right to expect that you should rise up 
as a unit to smite the army of darkness that has too 
long held us in thrall ? 

Each one of you, it seems to me, has an obligation 
to vote. It is an obligation that you cannot shirk with- 
out offending God. Any little whim, such as a dis- 
taste at appearing at the polls, will not be sufficient 
excuse. For there is a duty placed upon you by the 
supreme law of charity to kill that one vote for evil 
that it is in your power to kill. 

You must, then, vote. And you must vote hon- 
estly. Never let there be ground for saying of you, 
as there has been for saying of Catholic men, that they 
have used the franchise dishonestly. The Catholic 
women of Chicago must be above directly or indirectly 
corrupting public officials — if they should become 
officials themselves, they must be irreproachable. I 
would not so much as suggest that you might consider 
the taking of outright bribes, the payment of so much 
cash for such a service. But you must keep your eyes 
open and your hearts pure to detect every indirect 
form, such as promise of re-election, social prestige 
and every personal advantage. 

Catholic women must not use their power as citizens 
or as officials merely for their private profit. Do not 
vote for an alderman simply because he will have a 
street opened for your benefit when dozens of other 
streets ought to come first. Our government should 
not degenerate into a wild scramble for personal privi- 
leges regardless of moral law and God's justice. If 
there be good reason to call our governments by the 
expressive name of troughs, we have no right to be- 
come pigs therein in our eagerness to get our share 
of the graft. To steal from the people is as great a 

29 



sin or greater than to steal from an individual, no 
matter how the operation is conducted, no matter what 
name it bears in public opinion. 

And the Catholic women of Chicago must not only 
do no political wrong with their votes, they must do 
much political good. It ought to be a foregone con- 
clusion that Catholic names should be foremost in 
every movement for social betterment. Instead of 
strengthening the hopeless inertia that all seekers after 
improvement have to struggle so hard to overcome, 
they should be prominent in arousing the social con- 
science to action. You who pray so many times a day, 
"Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it 
is in Heaven," might reasonably, one might think, be 
counted upon to do something to make God's will more 
effective here and now. 

You cannot give as an excuse for standing here all 
the day idle that no man has hired you. You belong 
to the chosen people, and Christ has called you from 
our baptism to be a light unto the nations that know 
him not. It is useless for you to say, "I do no harm, 
I hurt no one," God did not put you here merely to do 
no harm. The commandments of the old law were all 
negative. Thou shalt not bear false witness, thou 
shalt not steal, and so on. But the commandments of 
Christ are positive. The rich young man, who from 
his youth up had kept these negative commandments 
of the old law, had not done enough. He was told to 
sell all he had. Christ does not say, "Do no harm," 
but "Love God with your whole heart, and your 
neighbor as yourself; render to Caesar the things that 
are Caesar's ; do unto others as you would have them 
do unto you." 

Therefore, in our political life, a mere negative good- 
ness will not do. If we are good trees, we must pro- 
duce good fruit. It is not sufficient that we should 
simply not produce bad fruit, if indeed, such a thing 

30 



is possible. For Christ said, He that is not with Me 
is against Me, he that gathereth not, scatter eth, and 
he who is not working to produce good is at least per- 
mitting evil. This is especially true under our form 
of government. The forces of evil are ever active, 
and if a good woman merely refrains from voting be- 
cause it is raining or it is too much trouble or for some 
other equally weak reason, she is really placing this 
vote in the hands of corrupt politicians. It was in her 
power to offset the vote of the vicious men who are 
always under the thumb of ward-heelers, and she did 
not do it. She is not merely not doing good — she is 
doing evil. For, to all intents and purposes, she is 
casting a vote for the machine, she is strengthening 
the grip of corruption upon our government. 

We have a right to expect that the Catholic women 
of Chicago will do all in their power, will exert them- 
selves to the utmost, to bring about the social good. 
We are members one of another. We were born into 
society and cannot escape from it if we would. It is 
not too much to say that we owe all our comforts, 
even our lives, to society, and we are bound to make 
some return. Whether you be high officials or low, 
women of large influence or simply with a vote to cast, 
you are obliged in the sight of God to use your power, 
such as it is, for good and against evil. You must in 
conscience vote for the good man as against the bad, 
the honest man as opposed to the grafter. 

I don't believe we shall be disappointed in our ex- 
pectations. I don't believe that the chivalrous confi- 
dence that we have had in women has been misplaced. 
And I pray that the Catholic women will be among 
those to respond most faithfully to this confidence. I 
pray — I know that the great mass of Catholic voters 
added to the electorate by the last legislature, the 
Catholic women of Chicago and Illinois, will respond 
loyally to the responsibility placed upon them; that 

3i 



they will vote honestly and intelligently, knowing the 
issues and the candidates; that they will continue to 
be, as they have always been, dominated by the great 
Christian principles of morality; and that instead of 
being corrupted by politics, as some have predicted, 
that they will purify and ennoble the home. What- 
ever we may have thought before of votes for women, 
they have achieved or had greatness thrust upon them, 
and they must not refuse its accompanying duties. Let 
womanhood take to herself those words of the King 
and Prophet David : "In thy comeliness and thy beauty 
go forward, proceed prosperously, and reign." Make 
them truly prophetic of the career of the women of 
Illinois. In your comeliness, and in your beauty, go 
forward, proceed prosperously, and reign, — more right- 
eously and honestly than the men have. 



32 



"Life is too short for reading inferior books." — Bryce. 



New York World: "The 'right to work for whom they please 
and how they please' has been used as a defense for every iniquity 
of industrialism, from phosphorous poisoning in match factories 
to the labor of tiny children long hours at night, from harnessing 
women like beasts, dragging mine cars, to the denial of safety 
appliances on dangerous machinery." 



CONSUMERS AND 
WAGE EARNERS 

The Ethics of Buying Cheap 
By REV. J. ELLIOT ROSS, Ph.D. 

_ An exposure of the vice-compelling, unjust wages of these troublous 
times — and a solution. Should be read by every buyer, every seller, every 
consumer and every wage-earner. It should be studied carefully by ALL 
fathers and mothers. 

"The inevitable result of low wages is poor health. Bad housing con- 
ditions and insufficient food must follow upon the heels of scanty pay, 
unless the wages are supplemented in some other way; and that means 
anemia, tuberculosis and general physical debility." 

A book that Pastors and Teachers may safely commend to employers 
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The Scholarly Month says: "In 'Consumers and Wage-Earners' we have 
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The Journal of Political Economy (Chicago University Press) : "Con- 
cise, logical and interesting." 

_ The Catholic World : "Dr. Ross has answered adequately and con- 
vincingly the question so often asked to-day about the responsibility of 
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